Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Spooks spooked, goblins gobbled, UFOs K.O.ed

This is something i've been thinking about all year, but it seems i should bring it up now that Dan Aykroyd insists that the third Ghostbusters will be coming without Bill Murray.

It's time to make the third one. - Aykroyd
 Mostly i want to talk about how wrong he is. (With or without Murray)
Not that i'm against sequels or anything, it's just the movie will be severely out of place if made now.

You see, Ghostbusters was a film built on the zeitgeist of the 80s. Ghost movies were rampant and New Age spirituality was on a rise.


The film came on the heels of the Shining, the Fog, Poltergeist, and countless other films not nearly as interesting. Not to mention everything that came after, culminating at 1990's Ghost. Ghostbusters II, opinions on he quality aside, was still set in the times of the paranormal.

These days however, ghost movies seem few, there aren't as many shows about hauntings either, the big topic today is, well:
Hamburgers
The biggest movie series right now is probably Transformers, a series about robotic cars from outerspace, then there's Cowboys & Aliens, Skyline, Battle: Los Angeles, Battleship, Prometheus.... and that's what, the last three years? Ancient Aliens nearly has its own channel at this point.

So instead of busting ghosts, a movie today should feature a group fighting aliens, and i know what you're thinking


But you'd be wrong. You see, i thought of all this before i had even heard of the Watch, and even if i hadn't, that just looks like some aggressively unfunny comedy that happens to involve aliens. i mean shit, compare that long rambling "I'd fuck an old dude" joke to this:  
Ray: Everything was fine with our system until the power grid was shut off by dickless here. 
Peck: They caused an explosion! 
Mayor: Is this true? 
Venkman: Yes it's true. This man has no dick. 
i'm guessing all that movie is about is no one takes them seriously, and then they save the day, the end.
 But you see, there's another issue that Ghostbusters plays around with, namely classism.


The design of the Ghostbusters is brilliant, they dress like exterminators, drive in a hearse style ambulance, and work out of a run down firestation. They're the unsung heroes of society, i mean, it's no coincidence all of their clients are wealthy. Walter Peck is the primary antagonist, he's a government man, the enemy of the blue collar workers (which, despite their PhDs the Ghostbusters are presented to be). Just look at the simple scene where he goes to shut down the containment unit, the guy in the hardhat doesn't want to shut it down, and the cop calls Peck a pencil neck. It's Peck's fault the apocalypse starts. Damn the man.

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

So, a new movie would have to have a ragtag group against some aliens, and also deal with some socio-poltical issues of today, and when this all clicked in my mind, i realized, this film had already been made:


 Yes, Attack the Block is the modern day Ghostbusters. You've got a group of inner city kids, it examines how they were brought up, how they live, how society views them, and the main antagonist is a drug dealer, oh and there might also be some aliens running about.

Ray. It's looking at me.
i have a feeling this isn't incidental, that Joe Cornish came to the same conclusion as me, that this is what was needed, hell, he even threw in a namedrop to the Ghostbusters. And while i wouldn't say Attack the Block is as great of a comedy as Ghostbusters, it's still a damn fine film, and one of my favourites.

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